Last week presented us with a look at a new cable rumored to be coming from Apple with the iPhone 6. This new USB to Lightning cable has a reversible USB connector, meaning you can insert it into an ordinary USB port in both orientations just like the Lightning end. Now MacRumors points us toward a video, posted by the same person as earlier photos, showing the cable being plugged in both ways.

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Over the years, either voluntarily or by pressure from environmentalists, Apple has paved the way toward eliminating hazardous materials like lead, mercury, and arsenic in the production of their products. Getting the ball rolling several years was no easy task as Apple was pressured mercilessly by Greenpeace to “clean up their act”. Now in 2014, Apple is the leader in safer production practices and renewable energy. Now Apple is adding two more chemicals to its list of banned toxins, benzene and n-hexane.

Countless rumors and reports, including ones here on the PowerPage, have all but taken it for granted now that Apple will be announcing two new models of iPhone next month. Spy photos and prototype cases have been pointing to a 4.7 inch (screen) model and a 5.5 inch model, the latter being Apple’s entry into the “phablet” market. While the more reasonable seeming 4.7 inch iPhone 6 hasn’t been confirmed, an agency in Thailand says it has absolute proof that two different models exist.

Sometimes patience can be a good thing, especially when developers run a sale on apps you’ve had your eye on. There’s quite a few good ones that are on sale or just plain free this week, so get ‘em while it lasts.

Apple is running their own promotion on productivity apps for the iPhone and iPad. They’ve gathered up 20 popular apps and slapped discounted prices on them. Some of the hot ticket items are Scanner Pro (use your iDevice’s camera to create PDF documents), Launch Center Pro (handy one-stop launcher for all your apps), Fantastical (calendar app that allows you to add events in plain language), and Boxer (email client with lots of advanced features). Launch Center Pro (separate versions for iPhone and iPad) is normally $4.99, but on sale for $1.99, just to give you an example.

According to tech news site Re/code, Apple has scheduled a media event for September 9th. If Apple follows suit with events in Septembers past, the focal point will be all about Apple’s next-generation iPhones. In barely over a month, we’ll finally know the final details on the new devices, which rumors declare will feature larger displays of 4.7 and 5.5 inches and run speedy new A8 processors. Additional rumors floating around are that delays in the production of the 5.5 inch model will mean Apple is likely to announce that availability of Apple’s entry into the “phablet” market will trail the 4.7 inch model by at least a month. Along with the new iPhones will be announcements regarding iOS 8, which are expected to debut on the new devices and be available for older devices sometime after September 17th according to Ars Technica. As with previous events, it will probably be held at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Apple may have a new competitor to its upcoming 4.7 inch iPhone 6, but now they’ll have to compete against their own designs. Some sources have been reporting that iPhone 6 “clones” are showing up in China that closely resemble the so-called iPhone 6 prototypes that have been leaked. One such reporter, Danny Winget, got his hands on one and created a video showing off the device. The device looks like it is running iOS (although he keeps saying iOS 8, I don’t see anything indicating this instead of iOS 7), but the device is in fact running a version of Android with an impressive iOS makeover.

As we reported last week, there were numerous problems with the MacBook Air firmware update released earlier in the week. Users reported symptoms as innocuous as the update simply not being applied, to preventing the laptop from rebooting. In most cases, performing multiple SMC resets on the computer fixed the booting problem, but the update was still not installed. A few users found that even though the System Information application reported that the firmware was not updated, afterwards their MacBook Airs began suffering some of the problems that the 2.9 update was supposed to fix. Some of the symptoms included trouble reconnecting to wifi networks, fans unnecessarily running at full speed, and issues with sleeping and waking the computer.

Let than a day after the reports began flooding in, Apple removed the update from the App Store and users were no longer getting prompted to install it. As of today, a newly numbered 2.9.1 update can be found appearing in the App Store under Updates. Owners are cautioned to hold off on applying the new update, unless necessary, until reports come back that the install is working correctly. We will keep you updated as reports come in and the situation develops.

Have you already risked the update? Let us know and any relevant details in the comments or on our Facebook page!

Amid the many MANY iPhone 6 rumors comes this one from a Chinese repair company called GeekBar, who posted these pictures of what is supposedly the new logic boards for a 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch iPhone 6. The boards do not have components attached, but some Chinese sources say that the new device will sport a next-generation “A8″ CPU, and have faster 802.11ac wireless networking chips as well as NFC hardware. Expectations of NFC (Near Field Communication) hardware in the iPhone have been around for some time, but Apple’s direction has clearly favored BlueTooth LE technology as used by their iBeacon hardware. The likelihood of any NFC hardware making it into Apple hardware is a stretch and questions the reliability of the report.

According to reports on the rumored 5.5 inch iPhone 6, manufacturing delays put the device’s debut closer to the end of 2014 or later.

After a day of user complaints of problems applying the MacBook Air 2.9 EFI firmware update after its release, Apple has finally pulled the update from the App Store. As we reported yesterday, threads like this one, started reporting that attempts to apply the update would run and fail to actually update the firmware, or that it would “brick” their laptop leaving it unusable. Those that weren’t left with a non-working MacBook Air also reported that after attempting the failed update, the App Store app would show the update as installed with an additional entry showing that it still needed to be applied.

It’s not an easy thing being a Microsoft employee right now, as the software giant is doing quite a bit of refocusing which means some of those workers will inevitably be left in the dust. Just ask the 13,000 employees who were let go last Thursday after CEO Satya Nadella outlined the coming changes in an email to employees sent the morning that the axe fell. About 12,500 of those layoffs were actually Nokia employees who only recently became Microsoft employees as the result of a $7.2 billion acquisition of the company in April. However, the layoff spree isn’t finished as there are still 5500 more layoffs to come in the next six months according to a report at Business Insider.